Opus Dei

In his 5 October general audience, Pope Francis continued his cycle of catechesis on spiritual discernment, speaking about self-knowledge and "passwords" in the spiritual life.

With the prayer of the Our Father, Jesus wants to make his disciples aware of their condition as children of God. An important consequence of the sense of our divine filiation is filial trust and abandonment in God’s hands. The Our Father is the model of all prayer: not only do we ask for everything we can rightly desire, but also according to the order in which it should be desired.

No one, under any circumstance, can claim the right to directly kill an innocent human being. The fifth commandment also forbids striking, wounding or doing any unjust bodily harm to oneself or to one’s neighbours, as well as offending them with insulting words or wishing them harm. As regards abortion and euthanasia, respect for life should be a boundary line that no individual or state can violate.

Eternal law, natural law, the New Law or Law of Christ, human political and ecclesiastical laws are all moral laws in a very different sense, although they all have something in common. To form an upright conscience it is necessary to instruct the intelligence in the knowledge of the truth – for which we can rely on the help of the Magisterium of the Church – and to educate the will and emotions through the practice of the virtues.

Baptism incorporates the person who receives it into the Life, Death and Resurrection of Christ and into his saving action. This sacrament leaves in the Christian an indelible spiritual seal of belonging to Christ. Through Confirmation, Christians participate more fully in Christ’s mission and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. A baptised and confirmed Christian is destined to take part in the Church’s mission of evangelising by virtue of these two sacraments.

The first commandment of the Decalogue is the only possible foundation for a truly successful human life. The highest reason for human dignity consists in our vocation to communion with God. Love for God must include love for those God loves. The second commandment forbids any inappropriate use of God’s name and in particular blasphemy.

Christian life strives to order the goods of this world to God and to fraternal charity. Both temperance, to moderate their use and possession, and justice, to respect the rights of our neighbour, are important. Solidarity should be added to these two virtues. The eighth commandment forbids the misrepresentation of the truth in one’s relations with one’s neighbour. Christians have the duty to bear witness to the Truth who is Christ and to acknowledge Him before men.

The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace. Sanctifying grace is a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul to make it capable of living with God. The seven sacraments correspond to all the stages and important moments of each Christian’s life: the sacraments give birth and increase, healing and mission to the Christian's life of faith. They form an ordered whole, in which the Eucharist is at the centre, since it contains the Author of the sacraments.

The resurrected body will be real and material, but not earthly and mortal. The enigma of death can only be understood in the light of Christ’s resurrection and our own resurrection in Him. Eternal life is what gives ultimate and permanent meaning to human life, to ethical commitment, to generous dedication, to self-sacrificing service, to the effort to communicate Christ’s doctrine and love to all souls.

The Church is inseparably both human and divine. It lives and acts in the world, but its goal and strength are not here on earth but in heaven. The Church seeks only the salvation of mankind, but she is also concerned with temporal affairs. Each Christian faithful participates in the mission of the Church according to his or her condition and vocation, and the gifts received.